The Oakland Raiders don’t need more carries for their leading rusher. They need more carries for their second-leading rusher.

When Curtis Martin of the New York Jets led the NFL in rushing last season with 371 carries for 1,696 yards, they still found time for 93 carries and 479 yards from Jordan.

The Raiders paid big money — $27.5 million over five years — for Jordan to be their lead back. The problem is, they never found him a sidekick, and in failing to do so, their commitment to the running game was halfhearted at best.

Jordan is essentially Oakland’s only running threat, with 893 yards on 247 carries. The Raiders either can’t or won’t get anyone else involved.

Zack Crockett, an elbows-and-knees power back who has proved to be a capable runner ever since he arrived in Oakland in 1999, hasn’t carried the ball in three of Oakland’s last four games.

Justin Fargas is active every week and plays on special teams, but the Raiders don’t apparently don’t trust him when it comes to holding on to the ball, staying healthy or both. He’s carried twice.

When wide receiver Alvis Whitted ran 27 yards with a reverse last week, it made him Oakland’s third-leading rusher with 51 yards.

In training camp, coach Norv Turner promised the Raiders would run the ball. Line coach Jim Colletto wasfrom Sports 1

imported from Baltimore, where his schemes helped Jamal Lewis rush for 2,066 yards despite a subpar passing attack and defenses often playing eight in the box.

Turner argues that his running game is predicated on down-and-distance, opposing defensive alignments and the score, elements that factor into play-calling.

But a good running team will run because that’s what it does. Period. It’s a state of mind the Raiders began gradually getting away from ever since leading the NFL in rushing in 2000 with 2,470 yards.

Admittedly, those figures were inflated because of 529 yards rushing by quarterback Rich Gannon. But the Raiders weren’t shy about handing off, either. Tyrone Wheatley had 232 carries and 1,046 yards, and Napoleon Kaufman 93 carries for 499 yards before being injured. Randy Jordan had 46 carries for 213 yards, and Crockett, in his role as a short-yardage specialist, had 43 carries for 130 yards.

Coach Jon Gruden, miscast as a passing game guru when his heart was in smash-mouth, was fond of saying, “The best thing about gaining 4 yards on first down is you can run it for 4 more yards on second down.”

Gruden’s teams gradually got away from a dominant running game, relying more and more on Gannon’s short-passing and decision-making skills, until Bill Callahan’s Raiders made a complete break in 2002 and threw the ball a record 618 times.

Their success was the exception rather than the rule. The Raiders met their demise in Super Bowl XXXVIII, with Gruden’s Tampa Bay Bucs doing the brutal, between-the-tackles running they’re doing again in 2005 as they resurrect their form as a contender.

The Raiders? They haven’t learned much since that day, because they’ve been a poor running team ever since.

Crockett, Oakland’s second leading rusher, has 26 carries for 110 yards.

It’s worth noting that in the 2004 season finale against Jacksonville, Turner called Crockett’s name 22 times, and he gained 134 yards.

Jordan, with 247 of Oakland’s 296 carries, has 83.5 percent of Oakland’s carries, the highest percentage in the NFL. Only Indianapolis’s Edgerrin James and Cleveland’s Reuben Droughns (80.1) are also over 80 percent.

Facing the run-challenged Jets in cold weather and Marques Tuiasosopo at quarterback cried for a run-heavy approach.

Instead of doing a cannonball into the deep end, the Raiders instead dipped their toe into the wading pool. Oakland ran the ball 17 times. Twice in the third quarter, Tuiasosopo was sacked and fumbled while trying to pass on first down, rather than establish a little power by hammering a running back up the middle.

The Jets, meanwhile, played the game the Raiders should have. They kept the play calls safe with inexperienced quarterback Brooks Bollinger and let him create with his legs.

The New York debacle was only the most blatant example. The Raiders have relied on Jordan and no one else, with Turner perhaps feeling pressure to make sure the passing game has all the appropriate bells and whistles.

As a young coach with the Los Angeles Raiders, Mike Shanahan said he felt as if he wanted to pass the ball to prove he knew all his x’s and o’s.

“Then you get a little older, call a few games, win some, lose some, and it’s pretty clear,” Shanahan told the Rocky Mountain News. “If you can’t run the ball, none of the things you want to do are going to work that well. And to run the ball, you have to commit to it. It isn’t a part-time thing. It’s full time. It takes commitment.”